Set Goals and Achieve Them – Leading Your Team Intelligently

Goals are important for morale and for production measurement. If you set goals with your team, they will work harder to meet those goals and feel satisfied when they hit those marks. If you want to track progress, then hitting goals/mile-markers in a timely fashion can reassure that work is being done at the desired pace. Team leaders, particularly for production teams, understand the importance of setting goals and achieving them. They also appreciate that goals take effort and commitment from every team member to fulfill. It’s up to the team leader to find the right balance between realistic and far-fetched goals, inspire and encourage in order to maintain success.

Why Are Goals Helpful?

Decision-makers are often leaders because of their ability to understand a challenge/issue and to choose its solution. Many leaders make decisions using an evidence-based model they either discovered organically or learned through education. In short, these are decisions made after collecting the necessary information required for the best answer. Although this sounds like an obvious system of decision-making, it takes a calm and controlled leader to stay determined and maintain focus on the goal.

Goals are usually set just out of reach; not so unreachable it’s ridiculous, but just above what the team thinks it can accomplish to push them further. Sometimes goals are not met for a variety of reasons, leaving both the leader and the team in paralysis by analysis. Paralysis by analysis is indecision caused by low confidence and apprehension – two side effects of missing goals. That’s why leaders have to stay determined, and keep the team’s morale up. Furthermore, leaders maintain focus on the goal and avoid distractions - like unnecessary evidence or additional issues – as well as help promote a healthy work/life balance for their team thanks to employees knowing exactly what needs to get done – nothing more or less. Maintaining focus on the goal will ensure the right decisions are made and the correct work is done.

How Production Team Leaders Set and Uphold Goals

Production teams are responsible for preparing, working, and closing an event or service. This type of work is fast-paced and requires efficiency and accomplishment. What better way to ensure that your team is operating appropriately than setting goals? As a leader, you can use the following three bullets as a guide for setting and attaining goals.

Encourage: Part of leadership is the ability to motivate and maintain a high morale. Most workers will hit a wall – everyone is human – and leaders need to positively and constructively get them back on the right path.

Inspire: One of the most important parts of setting and attaining a goal. Leaders can’t set goals for the team without their active participation and willingness. The leader and team must come together under one shared vision if they want to work effectively and accomplish their goals.

Successful production leaders understand not everyone will be happy, and it is their responsibility to make a connection between a teammate and the goal. Compromise, persuasion, reward and responsibility can bridge the gap between an unwilling team-member and unanimous goals. Once the team comes together under one shared vision/goal, they are guaranteed to accomplish them.

Ryan Ayers has consulted a number of Fortune 500 companies within multiple industries including information technology and big data. After earning his MBA in 2010, Ayers also began working with start-up companies and aspiring entrepreneurs, with a keen focus on data collection and analysis.